


by any other name

by rukafais



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe??? I don't know if this counts as AU, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 04:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18439007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: The Nightmare King’s vessel is never the same person twice. Neither is he.Across countless lives and countless lifetimes, they fall in love with each other, over and over.





	by any other name

**Author's Note:**

> All quotes (and heavy inspiration) comes from "25 Lives" by tongari. You can find it here. (http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/25-lives/)

_“Even though each time, I know I’ll see you again, I always wonder_  
_is this the last time?_  
  
_Is that really you?_

_And what if you’re already perfectly happy  
without me?”_

* * *

The first time they meet, Grimm is flame-bright and reckless and not yet ancient. The scarlet of his eyes is so striking that Euryale finds himself attempting to recapture it as he weaves, and finds himself distracted by it when he is not.

He prides himself on his work, and spends countless sleepless nights ensuring every detail is perfect. The gauze drifts like smoke, settles on Grimm’s shoulders like a breeze given form. He paces the room, testing every movement, and it flows through the air like ethereal wings.

“Marvellous,” he says, and smiles at him. “It’s truly a work of art. You’ve outdone yourself, my friend.”

Euryale adjusts the wrap and tries not to let his fingers shake, and the modesty he’s cursed with makes him mumble that Grimm flatters him with his compliments and honors him with his patronage. He doesn’t meet his eyes, not sure what he’ll find in them.

“I could use your talents,” Grimm says, with a smile and a laugh. “My musicians are wonderful, but they’re rather drab at times. And, of course, I would greatly enjoy wearing what you make.”

Euryale never quite manages to say anything, in all their years together. But he thinks, or maybe he hopes, that by the way his master looks at him, by the way his hands linger, that maybe that silence was mutual.

And oh, he understands just why it is, when the time comes for him to burn.

_He leaves the troupe’s service after his master’s death. He lives out the rest of his days as a tailor in a quiet village, remembering nothing, and is haunted only occasionally by dreams of scarlet fire._

* * *

In this life, Grimm is a storyteller, a traveller. His words are fiery, and he paces before the fire and makes the flames dance to his tales.

His eyes are as bright as ever, but cast into shadow by the hood that hides his face, and the scars that he admits are painful only when Ina calls attention to it.

“Does nobody else live here?” he says, and Ina meets his eyes and sees a kind of pity and looks away. He doesn’t want to be pitied. He’d say he wanted to be left alone, but he has his wish, and it’s brought him no comfort.

“We dwindled. There was a disaster,” he says at last, short and clipped. He isn’t one for words. It will be a habit that persists. “I lit the lantern myself.”

The pilgrimage, if it can be called that, takes weeks. Ina guides him through the ruins of a silent world, and watches Grimm coax the coals of a dead land to come to him. The restless ghosts he sees in every corner, clutching at his wings and dragging behind him in tangles like a spiderwebbed cloak, begin to disappear.

They sit by the fire every night and tell stories. Ina even laughs, once or twice, and it feels like a betrayal, but his heart is less heavy for it. Grimm says nothing at that laughter, those smiles that dwindle as quickly as they appeared, but his eyes are gentle. He listens to the other bug’s stories with rapt fascination, and Ina drinks up Grimm’s tales in return.

Ina doesn’t hope. It’s not for him. But he savours the softness anyway, and resigns himself to temporary warmth, because he knows that their time together is ultimately short. He understands the nature of the Troupe, and why he called them, and why they are here.

Once Grimm finishes his journey here, he will leave, and Ina - wordless, slow, always too quiet and too clumsy - will be left alone once again, without even the dead for company.

“Come with me,” Grimm offers, the night the Troupe departs. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

“I have nothing to give.”

“For the pleasure of your company, then.”

Ina glances at him, startled, and finds not pity there but an unspoken loneliness. He realises that he, too, came here with his kin, but with nobody else. No other living bugs.

In time, the Troupe recruits more members. But Ina was the first, and he cares for all the ones who come after, young and old, scared and tired and seeking an escape from the prisons of their lives.

The relationship between him and Grimm, the closeness that burns in both of them, is defined in sparse words and silent actions, moments of privacy stolen in between performances and destinations.

(Knowing that he loves and is loved in turn, and that all joy and all colour wasn’t stolen from him when his world ended and he survived against all odds - is enough.)

His master burns, as Ina knew he would.

_He leaves the troupe, knowing those he cared for will be safe. He wanders for the rest of his days, telling stories when the mood takes him, and feels completely at peace._

* * *

In this life, Grimm has no voice and prefers to dance instead, to perform death-defying feats that capture the crowd. In place of wings, he sends himself up in the air, and Pyralis, who has volunteered to assist with setting up a show, watches him soar in the night sky and is immediately smitten.

But he is still clumsy, still awkward, so his first romantic gestures never quite go the way he wants them to. Grimm seems charmed, regardless, by his efforts. Pyralis might have been more discouraged, but then he sees the way Grimm responds to other would-be suitors by firmly turning them down, and feels a little better.

He puts aside his thoughts of romance and strives for understanding instead. When Grimm asks him, silently, if he would like to join them - warning him of what he’ll lose, if he does - he gives it due thought and consideration.

Of course, he says back, without speaking, clumsy in his gestures but still clear, and Grimm - normally serious, and quiet, and thoughtful - smiles in a way that seems to illuminate the room and sparks something in his heart.

He becomes his master’s preferred partner in the many performances they do together; becoming his wings in acts when he feels he needs them, and simply his equal when he does not. Pyralis loves the times when Grimm soars by himself; he makes such things look effortless, like he can master the air through grace alone. Nobody can match him there.

The first time they kiss, it’s a surprise, and Grimm laughs without noise at the look on his face. The second time, it’s Pyralis who steals one, and savours his master’s shock.

There are plenty of opportunities for kisses, for affection, for enjoying each other’s company, in the long years to come. He is content to relax, and soothe his master’s worries, and to be by his side.

_Do you love me because you want to?_ Grimm’s hands are slow, and a little shaky, even though he is fluent. He gets like this more and more often as the years go by, as what they both know to be the end comes near.

_Of course_ , he replies, and presses his forehead to his master’s, and closes his eyes.

_In this life, he sends the Troupe away before the Ritual is done, and burns mask and memory in the fire. It consumes everything but the memory of a love he once had, and he lives out the rest of his days in a quiet, dry land._

_He talks very little about the emptiness he feels in his heart, the soft and indistinct dreams of someone holding him close. He takes the memories, if they can truly be called memories, to his grave._

* * *

He meets him, again and again and again. No matter who he is, what he looks like - the scarlet eyes, the clever hands, the distinct, sharp smile, all of those remain. It’s impossible to mistake him.

_(He meets him, over and over. He looks for him, that half-remembered spark; he is so hard to find. Always quiet and soft-spoken, finding it easier to act than to speak, finding it easier to hold his tongue than to say anything. But when he finds him again, it’s always a relief.)_

Sometimes, he never joins the Troupe, and their encounter in that lifetime is brief. Sometimes, he is among the dead and they never meet at all; sometimes, time passes differently and cruelly enough that he simply doesn’t exist.

_(Those lives are the ones Grimm hates the most. It feels like part of him is missing.)_

Occasionally, their meetings are cut short, are painful in other ways. Sometimes he is dying and it cannot be fixed - from sickness, from injury. Or he is wounded, in the Troupe’s service, and he cannot be saved.

Sometimes he can’t bear the thought of leaving Grimm to his fate, and he breaks the Ritual, and passes out of his master’s life. He burns his heart for kindling in Grimm’s place, and buys him just a little more time.

_(Grimm can never fault him, would never fault him, for those times. It is selfish and selfless all at once; wanting his master to live, not wanting to watch him die. He understands. Every incarnation of him understands.)_

* * *

“Do you regret it?” Grimm asks. His voice is vulnerable and sad, so unlike his usual confidence. “Being in love with me.”

_(It is a question asked countless times, across countless lives.)_

Brumm is the one who laughs, for once, though it, too, is vulnerable and sad.

“Never,” he says, and leans in to kiss him. “How could I?”

_(The answer, when it comes, is always the same.)_

* * *

_“Ah, but I don’t blame you; I’ll never burn as brilliantly as you. It’s only fair_  
_that I should be the one_  
_to chase you across ten, twenty-five, a hundred lifetimes_  
_until I find the one where you’ll return to me.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Trivia:  
> Euryale's name is derived from Hyalophora euryalus, the ceanothus silkmoth.  
> Ina's name is derived from the white witch moth's scientific name, Thysania agrippina.  
> Pyralis is taken from the scientific name for the common eastern/big dipper firefly, Photinus pyralis.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
